Share JohnRyan's profile
 
Facebook Twitter
 
 
JohnRyan
 
 
 
JohnRyan's stats
 
  • Review count
    1
  • Helpfulness votes
    6
  • First review
    December 5, 2015
  • Last review
    December 5, 2015
  • Featured reviews
    0
  • Average rating
    5
 
Reviews comments
  • Review comment count
    0
  • Helpfulness votes
    0
  • First review comment
    None
  • Last review comment
    None
  • Featured review comments
    0
 
Questions
  • Question count
    0
  • Helpfulness votes
    0
  • First question
    None
  • Last question
    None
  • Featured questions
    0
 
Answers
  • Answer count
    0
  • Helpfulness votes
    0
  • First answer
    None
  • Last answer
    None
  • Featured answers
    0
  • Best answers
    0
 
 
JohnRyan's Reviews
 
MJS Tablet: Snap photos, surf the Web or catch up on social media with this tablet, which features built-in Wi-Fi for easy access to the Internet and dual cameras and a built-in microphone for video chatting over Skype. Expand the 8GB storage capacity up to 64GB with a microSD card (not included).
 
Customer Rating
5 out of 5
5
A great value second tablet
on December 5, 2015
Posted by: JohnRyan
Clearly, MJS have made some compromises, to hit the magic price point. Here’s the details:
Value for Money --- 90%
There are some quirks and limitations, but in value for money terms, it’s hard (if not impossible) to beat.
Design and Build Quality --- 85%
It’s the slimmest, smallest, and lightest tablet enough to carry in a bag or coat without noticing it! In appearance it’s so flat and streamlined. It’s certainly a step up from the generic Android tablets I’ve reviewed at the same price, comfortable to carry one handed on a train. Entirely encased in black, it has a pair of plastic volume buttons at the top along with a power button, micro-USB and headphone socket, and a rear facing speaker near the base. Overall look and feel is restrained black, and build quality feels good, with none of the cheap plastic feel I’ve noticed on similar devices. The screen feels like it is, and there’s almost no flex when you push hard with your finger against it.
Screen Quality --- 70%
At 1024 x 600 pixels, you’re not looking at an HD screen (so no point paying extra to rent films in HD). But the texts are larger enough to read comfortably than other tablets. I’ve found the screen and color fade as you tilt the device left/right or up/down. This may not seem much of an issue until you try playing a driving or flying game where you constantly tilt and turn the tablet to navigate a race course - in which case it’s really frustrating. The screen is not made of the tough Gorilla Glass of the iPad or Nexus (so don’t drop it on concrete), but surprisingly it feels like glass. The screen is however a real fingerprint magnet, and is quite reflective so it’s useless in bright sunlight.
Web Performance --- 75%
During this test, I navigated to a series of web sites including News sites, Facebook and the incredibly rich text and photographs of the “Mail Online”. This is a terrific test for a budget device as the pages are packed with text, graphics and photos, and if a tablet can handle this, it will handle almost anything on the web. Pleased to say once the page loaded (a tad slow), the device scrolled smoothly with none of the jittering or multiple screen refreshes I’ve witnessed on some budget devices. While it’s not as blisteringly fast and smooth an an iPad Air, it’s impressive for the price.
Gaming Performance --- 80%
To check gaming performance I tested a series of Apps including Angry Birds, Temple Run and the graphically challenging “Real Racing 3”. I was less interested in the time taken to install or start the game, as whether it displayed graphics clearly, and was responsive to twists and turns. Pleased to say all games worked well, although Real Racing took AGES to download, and graphics showed a few jagged edges. However, game-play was smooth and fast, and it was a real pleasure to use. As a comparison, graphics seems about the same as an iPad mini 1 - which despite being three year old technology still sells for nearly four times the price.
Sound Quality -- 70%
This device has a mono rear speaker which is typical of budget devices. The downside is it’s easy to accidentally cover the speaker with your hands which reduces the volume. Having said that, I was genuinely surprised by the quality and clarity of music and game sound effects. Certainly OK for everyday use, and you’ve also the option of plugging in a pair of wired headphones to watch a film or listen to music.
Camera --- 60%
One of the biggest compromises, there’s a basic front and rear facing camera to shoot pictures or video. I gave these a rating of 60% as they are about what I’d expect at this price point. Video and photo quality is acceptable, but not outstanding, although the front facing camera (to shoot selfies or video calling using Skype) is basic and quite. For a child or occasional use, this shouldn’t be an issue (I’ve never taken a photo with my iPad - preferring a smartphone), it depends upon your priorities.
Storage and expansion — 80%
This is a budget device with only 8Gb of storage of which only about 5.5Gb is actually available for Apps, photos and videos, and unless you simply want to use it to read mails, web surf and stream video, you’ll need to add more. Thankfully, this is easily remedied, and unusually you can add a micro SD Card (a bit like a mobile SIM card, but it holds data instead). You can fit a card up to a whopping 64Gb (Gigabytes). I’d advise you add a 32 or 64 Gb card. Here’s a quick summary of the capacity :-
32Gb = 11,400 JPG photos or 65 SD or 32 HD movies or 8,000 MP3 songs
64Gb = 22,800 photos or 130 SD or 64 HD movies or 16,000 songs
Even 32Gb of storage will hold thousands of photos or apps, but video uses the most space, hence the benchmark above. I bought a 64Gb myself.
Battery Life and Power --- 80%
The battery life is more than 4 hours, and watching YouTube videos over WIFI with the screen at maximum brightness will drain the battery faster. During the past two few days testing, I typically managed just over four and half hours. Having said that, I was really thrashing it.
Conclusion
As a life long iPad fan (since the first version in 2010), I’m surprised to report this is a really impressive device for the money. I’ve tested and reviewed several similarly priced “budget" tablets. And this is the first Five Star tablet that was truly inexpensive without being “cheap”. If it were a car, and the iPad Air was a BMW 3 series, this would be a Ford Focus. A great value second tablet.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+3points
6of 9voted this as helpful.
 
JohnRyan's Review Comments
 
JohnRyan has not submitted comments on any reviews.
 
JohnRyan's Questions
 
JohnRyan has not submitted any questions.
 
JohnRyan's Answers
 
JohnRyan has not submitted any answers.